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About the Wellington City Libraries' Zine Collection

Wellington City Libraries has a collection of nearly 1300 zines (and growing!) with special emphasis on locally produced Wellington zines.

Zine (pronounced "zeen") comes from the words "magazine" and "fanzine" and is a self published, inexpensively produced publication with a small circulation. Zines come in paper form, usually written in computer-printed or handwritten text, photo-copied and stapled.

People who make zines are motivated by a desire to express themselves. For that reason a zine can be on any topic from art and music to politics and social commentary.

Zines offer a unique insight into people, their points of view, politics, philosophies and lifestyles, while locally produced zines also help preserve information about our history and culture that might otherwise be lost.

At Wellington City Libraries, zines are divided into two collections:

Open access zine collection

Closed access Wellington zine collection

Open access zine collection

This collection is located next to the enquiries desk in the Arts, Music and Literature section on the 1st floor of the Central Library.

It features zines created locally, nationally and internationally on a range of topics sure to interest just about everyone. We have zines full of crafty DIY instructions and recipes, travel zines, music zines, self-published comic books, and loads more.

All these zines can be issued for 3 weeks at no charge. So please grab a few to read in the Library or take home with you.

How do I find them on the shelf?

The open access zine collection is a browsing collection and currently not catalogued. However, title lists of our holdings are available below.

Also, to help you navigate the collection, zines are arranged into 6 colour coded categories:

Red - Personal zines, usually personal insights or stories inspired by the author's life

Yellow - Art, literary and music zines

Black - DIY zines

Orange - Comics

White - Miscellaneous zines, including history and politics, compilation zines and everything else that doesn't like to be categorised

As zines are often comprised of more than one of these categories, the colour represents the chief element of the zine. Also all of our New Zealand zines have "koru" stickers.

Please remember that if there is something in particular that you are looking for and can't find it, ask for help at the enquiries desk.

To see a list of all our holdings, enter in the keyword: zines. To search for a specific zine, try entering in the title.

To view the collection or for more information, please ask at the 2nd floor enquiries desk.

Not sure where to start?

The gold 'librarian's choice' sticker is our way of highlighting some of our favourite zines. Using the sticker as a guide is a great way to browse if you don't have a lot of time or are new to the world of zines. You can also check some zine reviews below.

Making a zine

Making a zine is fun, frustrating, exhilarating and satisfying. There are some great places on the web that show you how, talk about content, binding, distribution and all the other things you need to know before you start. A really comphrensive site is this one from zinebook.com: How to make a zine.

We also have a number of zine-making books that could be of use to anyone wanting to start a zine.

Stolen Sharpie Revolution, by Alex Wrekk
"A brief, but engaging, and eminently useful guide to doing a zine. From tools, to layout, copying, printing, trading, promotion, ordering, mailing, distribution, and a whole lot more. Over 150 (albeit pocket sized!) packed pages. The new third edition includes 32 more pages of distributor listings, stores, and libraries that work with zines." (Book Description, Amazon US)

Whatcha mean, what's a zine? : the art of making zines and mini comics by Mark Todd and Esther Peal Watson, with contributions by more than 20 creators of Indie comics and magazines.
"This book is for anyone who wants to create their own zine. It's for learning tips and tricks from contributors who have been at the fore front of the zine movement. It's for getting inspired to put thoughts and ideas down on paper. It's for learning how to design and print your own zine so you can put it in others" hands. Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? is for anyone who has something to say." (Book Description, Amazon US)

Contact us

As the zine collection is new and growing fast we would love your feedback, ideas on zines to buy, and any questions you have about the collection. Please email us with any feedback.